Steam for Linux

As part of the slow but eventual transition from Windows to Linux gaming, I feel the shifting pains more often of late. I'm finding myself more often having a single-player game paused on my Linux gaming rig and having friends want me to join them in a multiplayer game that (currently) only runs on Windows. Every time the scenario arises, I have to exit the other game, shut down Steam on Linux, and log back into Steam on Windows, then launch the game in question. It would be much better if Steam allowed simultaneous support for such scenarios.

Being able to launch the same game from both clients is not necessary (and causes logistics problems), and could be explicitly locked to prevent it.

LOLCAT, if they really, absolutely, wanted us to buy games several times at the cost of annoying a small subset of users, they would have started by not enabling "Steam Play", that let you buy a game once and play it on any supported platform.

That would be way more straightforward than trying to make extra money out of people wanting to play several games at a times, and only them (whom amount to way less people than the previously mentionned subset).

LOLCAT, if they really, absolutely, wanted us to buy games several times at the cost of annoying a small subset of users, they would have started by not enabling "Steam Play", that let you buy a game once and play it on any supported platform.

That would be way more straightforward than trying to make extra money out of people wanting to play several games at a times, and only them (whom amount to way less people than the previously mentionned subset).

I don't think it's up to them to decide, only for those few games that are made by them. They're all old and hardly anyone would buy them again. Steamplay is not meant to be nice to users but to attract more. Which brings more profit, as these users would buy new games when/if they come out.

See i think this would be a great idea though, in my case i have both the windows and linux version of steam on my linux machine, the windows one runs under wine since there's some games that don't have a native linux client but will still run just fine in my windows version, It'd be great if I could say have something downloading in one client while playing online in the other

This is fairly old, but I'm going to bump it because it's the first Google result.

I've started hosting my own Starbound server... it's a modest server that can only handle five folks, but it's not costing me anything.

Anyway, I have my older laptop running as a Linux server 24/7, and that's where I host my Starbound games. As it's a beta, it's getting updated very frequently, and I can't update both that game and the Windows version of the game at the same time.

Downloading the game from the command line requires logging in, and downloading on my Steam account on Windows requires logging in. If I log into either while the other is downloading, it kicks me out.

Perhaps there are licensing issues with allowing you to use two copies of a game at the same time, which is understandable. A possible solution is to allow two logins (One Windows, one OSX/Linux), and not allow the same game to be played on both sessions.

Clearly, some code is already present since it's possible to sign in on mobile devices and desktop devices simultaneously.

Okay, I don't really know why you're so against this idea. You seem to just want to be argumentative. I also proposed a possible solution.

I was wrong when I said it kicked me out... half-way, anyway.

When logged in on the Steam Windows client, if I log in with SteamCMD, it immediately disconnects the Windows client. All downloads are halted, and a prompt comes up asking for your password. You would have to either start a game or switch to offline mode before you logged in via SteamCMD. It's a pointless step.

If SteamCMD is currently downloading and you try to login with the Windows client, it simply doesn't allow you to login AT ALL until the SteamCMD connection is closed.